Excel Output Suggestion

rbuser

Currently I use Gnostice to provide Excel output for our ReportBuilder
reports. I find more and more demand for Excel type output from my
customers - however Gnostice has a hard time (and probably any other 3rd
party excel output) of putting the fields in the proper columns without
running into odd spacing issues. I think this is just the nature of the
beast. However, if Digital Metaphors could implement a feature like Delphi
Tab Indicators - where a field could have a Column # assigned to it - and
Excel based output that would follow this column designation, my customers
would love me forever. Any thought in future versions to handle this issue?

Thanks,

Rhett Price
IndySoft

rbuser

> Currently I use Gnostice to provide Excel output for our ReportBuilder

have you thought of providing output to Excel through a different solution
than a report? Reports just don't seem a great solution for exporting
data--that is not what they are (I for one don't want properties that tie to
one output format that I don't use). I know of an excellent 3rd party
product that would provide for exporting data (for mroe info ask in Delphi's
3rd party ng, where you will get more then just my opinion).

Edward Dressel

rbuser

Thanks for the suggestion Ed. Yes - I use things like DevExpress and TMS
extensively and use their export to XLS functionality. This works fine for a
lot of situations.

However, the reason I need a good Excel export from ReportBuilder is 1)
RAP - other solutions don't let you do any pre-manipulation of data before
the excel file is created. My users need to use functions to do additional
SQL lookups and other string transformations - Things like DevExpress grids
can't do this (afaik). 2) I need to provide XLS based output from a Web
interface (where Report Server is perfect). No good way to do this now with
a Grid export to XLS solution.

Thanks,

Rhett

rbuser

> However, the reason I need a good Excel export from ReportBuilder is


I would need more information, but I am not sure what you can't do.
Calculted fields in datasets are pretty functional, and should be able to do
most anything you need in RAP--I can't think of anything they won't cover.


agreed that a component with a user interface would be a bad web
implementation, but there are other solutions that should work really well.

nardmoseley

Currently the text based components have properties called Save (boolean)
and SaveOrder (integer).

You can use the File | Print to File Setup dialog to easily configure which
components you want to export and arrange the order.

The TextFile device uses the Save and SaveOrder to generate delimited text
files.

An Excel device could use this same info.


--
Nard Moseley
Digital Metaphors
www.digital-metaphors.com

nardmoseley

I should have added, I think you have some good feedback. When a user wants
to export to Excel, what is the goal>? Do they really want the report? Or do
they want the data?

With the TextFile device, we determine that the user wants the data. And in
fact, you can use a delimited text file to import into Excel. So we built
the Save, SaveOrder properties into the product to work as you describe.



--
Nard Moseley
Digital Metaphors
www.digital-metaphors.com

rbuser

Nard, this is exactly what I was looking for. I had no clue that 10.0 had
this feature. I've mostly worked in 7.04 for the longest time (because the
project used Delphi 5.0). I will chat with Gnostice and see if they use this
for Excel output in 10.0

Thanks for the help,

Rhett

rbuser

Ed,

I should have been more specific. I meant that this customization needs to
be done by our End Users - not by us. RAP allows for end user customization
of the Excel results. DevExpress doesn't (at runtime)

Nard showed me about Save and SaveOrder - this sounds exactly what I was
asking for.

Thanks for your help,

Rhett

rbuser

> I should have added, I think you have some good feedback. When a user

Or could they just want to use a standard format to give the information to
people not using the software?

nardmoseley

That Print To File Setup feature has been in the product since before RB 7.
It is convered in one of the Dev Guide tutorials.

For RB 11 the feature is enhanced to support memos, subreports, crosstab
data

--
Nard Moseley
Digital Metaphors
www.digital-metaphors.com

nardmoseley

Perhaps, A spreadsheet format is rows/columns - that lends itself well to
exporting the data. It does not work well for trying to export a complex
graphical report. For exporting the entire report another format might be
better - PDF or maybe RTF.


--
Nard Moseley
Digital Metaphors
www.digital-metaphors.com

rbuser

Yes, our customers need to collect, sum, avg, etc. their data. Then push
that data to Excel so someone that doesn't have our software can manipulate
it (like accounting, etc.) That's where ReportBuilder is great for that
final manipulation of totals, SQL lookups, etc - stuff the customer can do
themselves. Then do a final dump out to Excel.

- Rhett

rbuser

Ahh... I see. Gotcha - yeah, I was looking for a right mouse Menu item for
Save or SaveOrder. I see it now in the Properties on the Calc tab. I was
aware of the Print To File option - but had it turned off since must of our
customers wanted Excel anyway - and I just used Gnostice for that.

Thanks,

Rhett